Gold and Charcoal, Epilogue
Title: Gold and Charcoal, Epilogue
Rating: NC-17 here!
Genre: AU
Pairing: Multiple
Length: 7,009 words
Roy had never thought he would ever regret being a literate mongrel alchemist. But as he watched the piles of papers on his desk rise to dizzying heights, he found himself regretting aplenty. Had there been a sufficiently large window in his richly decorated office, he might have defenestrated himself.
The door across the room opened, Edward stepping in with yet another folder in hand. "Hey, Riza just brought this from Armstrong's office. First priority."
"What is it now?" he despaired. "He wants to change the army's uniform to a happy pink color to boost moral?"
"It's about Hughes' wedding," Edward corrected, shamelessly flipping through the document. "Just a few extra security measures he wants to implement. Just sign it. It looks good to me."
Roy breathed. "Ah, yes. I'm glad he took care of that. We can't afford any incident.” How long had it been since the last mixed wedding in Central? A few hundred years? Some imbeciles were bound to try to cause trouble.
“Let them try.” Edward flexed his automail meaningfully.
Taking hold of the folder, Roy only skimmed the sheets inside before adding his signature under Armstrong’s. He trusted Armstrong on such matters. On some others, however... There were days he wished that either he ruled alone, or that Armstrong ruled alone. It was a headache to handle the big man when he got a case of bleeding heart and had to be talked out of trying to save the world right this minute. Riza helped him in such cases, but somehow he was expected to do the dirty work, because he was the “other fuhrer,” or whatever the two of them should be called when they ruled jointly. So far everybody seemed to find “Mr. Mustang” and “Mr. Armstrong” perfectly acceptable.
"What about Dante's funerals?” he inquired. “He hasn’t sent me anything on the subject since we spoke about it.”
"Oh yeah, that. Riza said he agrees it should wait after the wedding, but he says it’s going to have to be public. People need to know she really died."
"It won't help them believe she died of a disease we couldn't cure rather than from a secret execution,” he pointed out, shuddering as he remembered the woman’s fate.
Edward grimaced along: they'd both seen Dante just before her death, rotting inside and out. Medical alchemy could do nothing against that. They’d all implicitly agreed that she would not be offered another body, no matter how much she screamed for one. The cost of creating a stone to do it was much too high to even consider it. Armstrong, in this matter, had not been soft at all: after all, Dante had tried to claim Catherine’s body for her own.
The phone rang just as Edward left the room: Roy picked up, knowing only one person had access to this line. "Yes, Alex?"
"Have you reviewed the report for the wedding? I’d like it back immediately.”
"It's on its way.” Seeking an excuse to delay returning to work, he babbled on. “Speaking of weddings, have you heard anything about Catherine and Scar?" He still couldn’t believe it, but he knew a woman in love when he saw one. Scar...well. Who knew?
"Catherine says she must be gentle with him on this matter," Armstrong said, and did not seem to find anything odd with his own words. "They've been talking about heading to Ishbal with the freed slaves, to help them rebuild. Our parents object so far, but I believe she will have her way."
"It could be good for us," Roy mused. They needed all the positive publicity they could get.
"It could be good for the Ishbalians," Armstrong correctly gently. "Their world was torn apart. They may need help putting the pieces back together and I don't believe they would resent my sister's involvement."
The door creaked open: Edward’s head poked in, graced him with a warning frown and disappeared again.
He sighed, understanding the message. "I see. Well, if you'll excuse me, the paperwork is breeding. I still foolishly hope to be in bed before sundown."
"Good luck," Armstrong said with sympathy. "Be careful. There may be more attempts on your life."
"I have the two best bodyguards. Watch your own back."
Alex had a point. There was a very good reason why neither of their current offices had more than small windows placed high above the ground: two days after Alex and he had been announced as the new rulers, someone had thrown a bomb in their common office. Only the Elrics' quick reactions had saved them. Alex and he had separate offices now, to ensure they could not be not injured or killed together. It was a depressing thought.
His office itself was depressing. Oh, it was fancy enough, the blue walls covered with ridiculously expensive paintings and the furniture as comfortable and luxurious as it could be, but it was nothing but a trap designed to make him feel important as he slaved over stupid paperwork.
"I still don't see why Hughes couldn't do this job," he complained, staring at a fifty-page report concerning the various damages made during the uprising. "He's literate and charismatic too!"
"But you're the alchemist," Alphonse told him, walking in with a fresh cup of coffee. "It's your fault for impressing everybody with your skills.”
"Not everybody," Roy muttered.
"We're keeping an eye out for those," Alphonse assured him, leaving the coffee on his desk before moving back to his position in front of the door. Both of the Elrics spent their days there, talking, watching and taking turns bringing him food, drinks, or documents sent by Armstrong. It seemed a little dull, but Roy sometimes envied them: they didn’t have to deal with the paperwork!
The natural light died long before his workload. He heaved yet another sigh, cursed the existence of electricity and continued working.
Eventually, Roy noticed the paperwork piles were in fact lowering. He stared in amazement, then realized it was because there hadn’t been an arrival of paper in some time. Armstrong must have been pried away from his desk either by his sister or his fearsome half-secretary and half-bodyguard Riza Hawkeye.
He threw himself back to work, gleeful at the concept of lowering stacks.
The next time he looked up, there were two blondes staring down at him with crossed arms.
“Do you know what time it is?” Edward demanded.
"For someone who claims to hate all of this so much, you sure work hard,” Alphonse added. “You’re done for today. Put the pen down.”
He looked at his stacks, then back at them. “I don’t think I can.”
“Put the pen down,” Edward repeated, “or else.”
“Now.” Alphonse reached out and pulled the pen free from his grasp. “You’ve hardly left this room all week.”
“I went out a few times to see people.”
Edward snorted. “Because you had to. You didn’t even answer Greed’s invitation to visit his ‘classy’ brothel. I didn’t know your libido was already dead.”
“It’s not dead,” Roy protested, “I’m just busy. Beside, I’m not the kind of man who enjoys tacky places like brothels.”
“Yeah?” Edward put his hands on the desk and leaned toward him. “Well you better enjoy me. Move it.”
His mood improved by a notch as the words. The assassination attempt had yielded one very, very good consequence: Edward’s sudden decision to jump him (quite literally too). Maybe he just looked irresistible when he was under shock from nearly being killed, or maybe Edward thought sex was the only cure for shock. Either way, Roy had no complaints about it. He especially did not have any complaints about repetitions. It saved him the trouble of staging another murder attempt on his person.
Since he was visibly not being given a choice, he gave up and let Edward herd him toward the door. Alphonse followed them after scooping up the remaining documents in the urgent pile, certainly meaning to go through them for him. It wasn’t right to let someone else do his work, but there were times that the Elrics disregarded his opinion entirely, and this was one.
He protested on principle, but soon went quiet to avoid attracting attention. The sole advantage of working so late was that almost everybody else was already in bed and therefore couldn’t flock to him to drive him crazy with empty flattery and obvious attempts to influence him.
They quickly reached what everybody called “Mr. Mustang’s private quarters.’” There were guards at the door (and more in the back and on the roof), ensuring nobody could enter those rooms but the three of them. Well, the four of them, if the furball counted. (And Hughes. But Hughes never asked permission and nobody even knew HOW he got in. Somewhere along the way, the ninja joke had gotten out of hand.)
Havoc, one of the two guards presently on duty, pretended to choke on his cigarette. “Home before midnight, sir? I’m dreaming!”
“I was overpowered,” he answered dryly.
“We’re turning into babysitters,” Edward complained. He used alchemy to unlock the door and to lock it again behind them.
It was quiet inside: despite the lavish decoration, it was more like a bunker than a residence, with thick walls and narrow windows. The bedrooms had no windows at all: there would be no bombs thrown at them in the middle of the night.
The main bedroom was where they headed, shedding their clothes on the way. They were set back a few minutes by a meowing cat: Alphonse dumped the paperwork on the counter and hurried to feed her.
They resumed drifting toward the bed: free time had become a rare thing so they knew to hurry to take advantage of every minute.
Collapsing in a heap of naked limbs, they spend a few seconds trying to decide what they were doing without speaking a word. Edward grabbed a pillow and made himself comfortable against the wall, prompting Roy to push the blonde’s legs apart and dive in for a mouthful of soft flesh. This was work he could enjoy, work to be done with lips and tongue instead of his brain. Edward conveyed his approval by burying a hand in his hair.
Alphonse followed the theme, nudging him to spread his own legs: he did, allowing Alphonse to wiggle between them on his back and mirror what he was doing to Edward’s cock.
Roy was supporting himself with a hand on the bed and a hand on Edward’s automail: before long he found himself stroking the metal with his fingertips. Edward seemed to make a point not to make a sound when getting head, at least not when it was from him, but he’d had the occasion to find out there was an easy way to defeat Edward’s pride.
His fingers moved, searching, while Edward’s cock hardened and lengthened in his mouth. He was pleasantly aware of his own cock behaving similarly thanks to Alphonse’s teasing tongue.
Finally, Roy found and released the catch: the automail leg slid free.
Edward grunted. “Pervert.”
Alphonse laughed, or tried to, nearly gagging on the cock in his mouth. Roy might have gagged on a laugh too if he hadn’t already pulled back. They knew which of them was the most perverted.
Pushing the automail limb out of the way revealed the port and its most delicate parts-most sensitive parts too. Edward’s cock slid back in Roy’s throat as gently as his fingers slid inside the port, seeking the edge, just there-
A barely repressed twitch told him he had it right. His fingertips circled patiently, ever so light and careful. The twitches could not be hidden forever. Momentarily abandoning Edward’s straining cock, he nested his face in gold pubic hair and nibbled on what little flesh remained on Edward’s left thigh.
A human hand was pulling on his hair insistently, the automail one safely curled into the sheets. Edward’s strained breathing finally became audible, competing with Alphonse’s sucking sounds. Fierce competition indeed: Alphonse was resorting to unfair techniques, rolling his balls into his mouth and pulling very gently on them. It made him want to look down and watch, but he had a job to do.
“Come on,” Edward ground out.
He obliged, not from any desire to be kind, but because Alphonse was doing a marvelous job and it wouldn’t do to lost his erection so soon. He wasn’t old, but he was a grown man, and it was complicated to satisfy two young lovers.
His tongue spread saliva up and down Edward’s cock in long, slow licks before he pushed the head between his lips and beyond. An unexpected jerk of Edward’s hips pushed the cock deeper: his throat constricted, protesting. He would have pulled back a touch, couldn’t thanks to Edward’s insistent push on the back of his head. He focused on breathing through his nose and sucked, fingers dancing. If he did this right…
Ah, there it was, full out panting, borderline moaning, not to mention twitching hips and a painful grip on his hair. It was a race now, to make Edward come before Alphonse could make him come.
He won, earning a mouthful of semen as his prize. He moved aside then, rescuing his own cock from Alphonse’s mouth. Alphonse did not protest, rubbing neck muscles that no doubt ached from the straining position.
Edward, limp against the wall, was visibly trying to restore oxygen circulation to his brain. “Put it back,” he grumbled. “Hurry up.”
Roy did, quickly sliding the leg back where it belonged, but not without a touch of regret. It would be nice, sometime, if Edward would allow him to take off both his automail limbs to sleep, agree to be vulnerable for a night, but trust didn’t go that far yet.
The automail connected: Edward jerked back and slammed his head against the wall. A jumble of curse words tried to come out of his mouth all at once.
“Niisan, careful!”
“Edward?”
“I’m fine. Ugg. Carry on.” Rubbing his head, Edward rolled to the bed’s edge and settled on a pillow, looking grumpy and not longer interested in sex.
Alphonse, stroking his own cock with his legs spread invitingly, looked exactly the opposite.
Snagging the oil bottle on the nightstand, Roy motioned for Alphonse to roll over. His lubed fingers opened the way, his cock shortly replacing them. He hardly had to push, Alphonse eagerly pushing back on his cock.
Once deep inside, he slowed down, his hands parting Alphonse’s buttocks to better watch himself sink in and out. He might have been going a little too slow: Alphonse took over, firmly moving his hips back and forth until Roy took the hint and matched the speed. Flesh slapped flesh nosily.
Lowering himself over Alphonse’s back, he thrust harder until he came, ears full of the best sound in the world, a partner panting in pleasure from his attention. Nobody could say Roy Mustang wasn’t good in bed.
Aware of Alphonse’s preferences, he wrapped an arm around the blonde’s chest and sat back, pulling him along. Well seated on Roy’s still-hard cock, Alphonse jerked himself off with soft sounds, head thrown back to rest against Roy’s shoulder.
A quick cleanup later, they joined Edward under the covers. Sleep came fast.
Alphonse allowed himself a few moments to relax under the warm covers before regretfully forcing himself out of bed and away from loving cuddles. He wiggled into pants and retrieved the paperwork from the kitchen, bringing it back to the desk in the bedroom. He only lit one of the two lamps on the desk, mindful of the sleepers. Charcoal appeared to take her rightful place in his lap while he worked.
As he’d expected, most documents were perfectly in order and only required Roy’s signature. They concerned everything from orders to repair damages done during the uprising to new regulations meant to introduce equality for all. A few were purely informative documents of some importance: he read those carefully and set them aside for Roy.
A few more were completely worthless, ridiculous demands made by people who somehow had enough influence to end up in the urgent pile. One of them was nothing less than a petition to stop Hughes and Gracia’s wedding. Alphonse was tempted to tear it to pieces, but instead carefully reviewed the signatures: it was good to know who were the morons who thought that it was “unwholesome” and “degrading” to allow a blondie to marry a mongrel. Armstrong must have had the same thought: he’d circled the most influential names on the list for Roy’s benefit.
Peace and quiet did not last long enough for Alphonse to finish. Edward, having visibly recovered from his self-inflicted headache, had certain goals in mind: after nudging Roy’s arms apart, he transmuted part of the bed over the forearms.
“Niisan,” he said disapprovingly.
“What, you got sex and I didn’t.”
“You came too!”
“You tell me I need to sleep and then proceed to prevent me from doing so,” Roy mumbled into the pillow.
Edward straddled Roy’s back. His extremely long blonde hair, now free from its usual ponytail, covered his back like a cape. “You got a problem with that?”
“I’m already awake, aren’t I?”
Edward flashed him a triumphant smile. He rolled his eyes and tried to return to work. Tried being the key word. He found he couldn’t keep his eyes focused on the documents: they kept wandering off to see what it was Edward was doing, glimpsing light bites, fleeting touches and secret whispers.
It took him ten minutes to read a single page. He could have moved to the kitchen, but… Giving up, he prompted his chin into his palm and watched.
Edward leaned to speak in Roy’s ear, no doubt saying the kind of thing that Alphonse personally thought degrading, but those two seemed to have made a game of weird power trips, as evidenced by Roy’s smile even as he replied barely audible words.
“Oh, is that so?”
Edward’s human arm was stretched downward, his fingers visibly deep into Roy’s ass. The oil bottle could be spotted on the bed near them, on stand by for further use.
“Come on, say it,” Edward insisted, grabbing Roy’s hair with his automail and roughly pulling the older man’s head back.
“I’m all yours,” Roy said, eyes closed.
Edward pouted: it didn’t seem to be exactly what he wanted to hear. Still, he accepted it.
“Obviously, you are,” he replied, removing his fingers from Roy’s ass and slapping said ass with enough vigor to leave a red mark.
The oil bottle was recovered and put to good use. Edward pulled up Roy’s ass to a height he found acceptable and introduced his cock to Roy’s ass with a continuous push.
“You like that, bitch?”
“Mm, yes.”
Slow was not generally Edward’s preferred way to go about sex, but slow was how he took it and the reason for it was painfully obvious. Considering Edward’s typical impatience, he was the one suffering most from this tactic, not Roy.
Alphonse’s lips twitched but he forced himself not to laugh, a hand over his mouth. The whole thing was hilariously bad, but he couldn’t tell his poor brother. Edward certainly thought he was amazingly dominant and everything.
It was a wonder Roy was able to keep himself from laughing. Then again, Roy was probably aware that laughing would mean the end of sex until Edward stopped sulking, and that could last forever and a half. Why exactly Edward had suddenly decided he was going to fuck Roy as often as he could, well that was another matter entirely. Alphonse figured it was one of two thing: Roy’s momentarily vulnerability had been too much of a turn-on, or Edward had finally noticed bad stuff could happen to people not-him and if he didn’t suck up his pride fast enough, he might never get what he wanted. Maybe it was both. He couldn’t tell for sure, because his oh-so-mature brother blushed and glared if he tried to breech the subject, preferring to act like fucking Roy was the most natural thing in the world and he’d been doing it forever anyway.
As for Alphonse’s own role in the whole thing, well. When your sibling walks in on you making your big move, the socially acceptable response is to say “go away.” Unfortunately they’d never been that good at socially acceptable and Edward seemed to think he had to share. Their mother had indeed taught them to share everything, but he was pretty sure she hadn’t meant they should share a lover the way they would a cookie. He saved himself a headache by not asking questions and telling himself that whatever made everybody happy was fine with him. Socially non-acceptability aside, it was working out just fine so far.
When Alphonse’s mind stopped wandering and returned to the ongoing show, it found nothing had changed. Edward was still valiantly keeping himself going slow and steady, the frustration on his face evident, and Roy was still valiantly not laughing at the silliness of it all.
Roy’s next twitch served as an occasion for Edward to speak, hopeful, “Getting sore, huh?”
“A little,” Roy conceded.
“Maybe I should do something about this?” Edward mused, stopping his thrusts to grab Roy’s neglected cock with both hands. Perhaps a little too hard too: Roy squirmed.
“I would appreciate.”
“Mm. Try harder.”
“Please do.”
“Do what?”
One of them was playing with the other, but Alphonse wasn’t sure which. The game went on for a little while before Roy consented to deliver the words Edward wanted to hear.
“Please let me come.”
Looking more than happy to deliver, Edward used both his hands to achieve it, though he was always careful with the automail. There had been accidents in the far past, and they’d learned.
Edward himself was not done. This time the thrusts were far more frantic and his hands gripped Roy’s hips hard, jerking them back and forth. He pulled back as he came, gracing Roy’s back with a few drops of semen.
After enjoying the view a few moments, Edward bent down to remove the semen with his own tongue. Once done, he freed Roy from his bonds.
Roy rolled over on his back, eyelids already dropping again, and reached out to pull Edward to his chest, where Edward settled contently. Sleep seemed about to snatch them both: Roy’s last gesture was to plant a kiss on Edward’s forehead, which earned no complaint.
Alphonse shook his head: only his brother felt he needed to assert his dominance (no matter how badly he did so) before he could allow himself to nest in an older man’s arms.
His eyes fell on the work he had left: he resumed working, trusting the erection in his pants would die off on its own. One document, a single sheet, made his eyebrows go up: a woman claimed that Roy had gotten her pregnant several years ago and demanded that he took his responsibilities for her son Selim’s well-being. While Alphonse suspected Roy had distributed his seed widely, he thought this woman was most likely lying. He’d let Roy decide what to do about it.
It was almost a surprise when he ran out of work. It hadn’t taken that long. He stretched his arms above his head, content to have made a dent in Roy’s workload.
“Done? Come to bed already,” Edward’s hushed voice called to him.
Roy was asleep, lying on his back with his head turned in Alphonse’s direction and his arm still curled about Edward’s small body.
“I’m not sleepy,” he whispered back, leaving his seat. It was late now, but he knew someone who would still be up at this hour. “I think I’m going to visit him.”
“Fine,” Edward said sulkily. “Be careful.”
“You really should-”
“Lay off.”
Alphonse collected a few clothing items and made it to the door, looking over his shoulder to say, “You know he doesn’t have long to live.” He didn’t wait for a reply.
Outside, he saw Havoc had been replaced: he smiled and saluted the new guards.
He encountered no one in the corridors beside a few soldiers: the situation had mostly stabilized, but they could not be careless, not with the critical wedding coming up. There were still a few “fresh paint” signs where repairs had recently been done.
Yet more guards stood at the entrance of the quarantine area: they knew him and let him through wordlessly. The quarantine area was where Dante had been held and treated until her death, and it was where a new patient was now waiting for his own end.
Hohenheim’s sudden reappearance had shocked everybody: they’d dismissed him as dead, thinking Envy must have impersonated him for years. And yet, here he was, still breathing and completely unaware of everything that had occurred since before Trisha’s death.
Hohenheim was not alone: Clara sat with him, making small talk. She rose as he entered. “Ah, Alphonse. Paying a late visit again?”
“We just finally got done with work for today,” he sighed.
“You know what I said about overworking yourself.”
“I know, I know. We try. There’s just so much to do.” He thought Clara’s workload must have been just as heavy for her to be awake at this hour. There were indeed dark circles under her eyes.
“Well, I’ll leave you two alone then,” the woman said, tactfully removing herself from the room.
Alphonse took the vacant chair. “Hello, Father.”
“So Edward still won’t talk to me?”
“I’m sure he’ll get around soon.”
He hoped there was time: it was hard not to look at the purple marks visible on his father’s neck. They still did not know what was this horrible illness that had killed Dante and was killing Hohenheim. All Hohenheim had been willing to say was that it was not contagious (though telling people it was kept the curious at bay) and that the illness was the reason he’d left years ago, hoping to find a cure. There wasn’t one, he’d told them, seemingly at peace with the fact.
They spoke at length: philosophy, science, alchemy and his childhood were some subjects they touched. There were many things Alphonse would have expected himself to say in this situation, but now that it was real and his father was in front of him, he found he did not want to linger on painful events. It wouldn’t change anything, and Edward had to realize that soon.
Of Trisha’s fate, they did not speak. Hohenheim’s only reaction upon learning what had befallen his wife had been to ask to see the grave, a wish they had granted him at night to avoid attracting onlookers. He’d remained there for hours but hadn’t asked to return since.
When Alphonse left, he was dismayed to find out the sun was about to rise. Clara was also still awake, though she yawned before telling him softly, “I don’t expect him to live beyond next week, Alphonse. A normal person wouldn’t even get that far, but whatever this disease is, it isn’t normal.”
“Do what you can, please. I’ll be back tomorrow.” With Edward, he hoped.
He was welcomed home by the comforting smell of brewing coffee. Roy was awake-in a manner of speaking-and watching the coffee machine with rapt attention.
“Roy. You shouldn’t be up so early. You need sleep.”
“I’m a grown man.” Roy gingerly poured himself a cup of steaming coffee. “I don’t need that much sleep. You’re the one who shouldn’t be up. Go to bed. You can join us later at work.”
“Going, going…“
Coming closer, Roy used his free hand to ruffle his hair. “Sleep,” he repeated gently, giving him a small push toward the bedroom.
Edward was spread all over the large bed, snoring happily. Alphonse nudged a limb aside and claimed one of the numerous pillows for himself, falling asleep so fast it was more like passing out.
Edward was awakened by a loud obnoxious voice.
“Edward!” the voice said in what seemed to be pure delight, “My Gracia is pregnant! We’re having a baby!”
“Hughes,” Roy’s voice chided. “Alphonse needs to sleep, keep your voice down.”
“Awake now,” Alphonse said sleepily. “Congratulation…”
“Thank you! Isn’t it just amazing? A baby! It’s like magic!”
“One day I’ll explain biology to you, Hughes.”
“Who let this guy in?” Edward grumbled, burying his head under his pillow.
“No, you get up,” Roy said, grabbing his ankle and pulling. “I need to go to work and Alphonse is sleeping in. Up.”
“Gracia says she’s almost three months along,” Hughes was babbling on. “She wasn’t sure at first because she didn’t feel sick but the doctor confirmed it! She’s pregnant! We need to think about names. What if it’s a boy? What if it’s a girl? Oh, a baby girl! I could buy her dresses--”
“That’s great, Hughes,” Roy steered his crazy friend toward the door. “Now could you get out so Edward can get dressed? I have to go to work soon. Shouldn’t you be watching over Gracia? She could be feeling badly.”
“Oh, I’m going right back to her! I told her she should stay in bed. I’ll cook the healthiest food for the baby--”
Finally, the endless stream of words was cut off.
Edward pulled himself out of bed and hurled himself into the bathroom for a five-minute shower. Alchemy dried him quicker than a towel. He shaved, put his hair up in a ponytail and dressed quickly, but without enthusiasm. He wished his brother and he didn’t have to do this, but there was nobody else he trusted with this job. A job that Roy described as “protecting the frail stability of the new government,” which basically meant he had to keep crazies from blowing up Roy so the man could keep the privilege of bashing his head against the wall trying to fix what 400 years of baseless discrimination had done to the city and the country.
He was just glad he wasn’t the one dealing with the paperwork.
A stack of golden-brown pancakes was waiting for him on the table, like a gift from the gods. Their end was quick and painless. The day however, was unlikely to be either quick or painless. From the moment he opened the door, he was Mr. Mustang’s bodyguard and on high alert. It would take much time before they would be allowed to relax and he could go back to what he liked best, alchemy.
They moved quickly, safely arriving at Roy’s office to begin a wonderful new day of paperwork (for Roy) and refusing entry to all sorts of people who thought they could just walk in and tell the mongrel what they wanted (for him).
And of course there was a little problem that, so far, he’d been able to keep from Roy. Alphonse, when he appeared early afternoon, was not fooled by his attempt at a blank expression.
“Hey. You don’t look in a good mood. Something to do with these ashes on the floor?”
He let out an aggravated sigh. “I swear, if they don’t stop offering themselves like whores, I’ll strangle them. Can you imagine how inflated his head would get if he saw all those marriage proposals from complete strangers? It’s bad enough with the women who trail him whenever he’s not at home or at work…”
“You could marry him,” Alphonse said. “That’d end it.”
He gagged at the idea. “I’m not marrying him! Men don’t marry!” Why would men even need to? Marriage was mostly a way to force a man to admit he was the father of a woman’s children. Since he didn’t like women, he would never have that problem. He could just see Winry trying to stuff him into a dress, insisting one of them had to wear it… No, no marriage.
Alphonse patted him on the shoulder. “Niisan. Roy and Armstrong are planning to ban slavery, to open schools for the poor, to allow mixed marriage and to stop alchemical research and experiments on people. I think homosexual marriage would go through a lot easier than half of those. People would complain a lot more about your hair color than about your sex.”
He shrugged. “They have enough problems with everything you just listed without adding to it.”
“Don’t complain then. These marriage proposals will keep rolling in until he’s settled down, and then they’ll still be trying to sleep with him. Beside, sooner or later you’ll be found out. The whole ‘private bodyguard’ thing only goes so far…”
“What do you know?” His brother was probably right, but he didn’t like it. “Beside, what’s with the ‘you’? It’s not just me.”
Alphonse grimaced. “You can be the official partner thing and deal with the jealous women. I’ll stick with being the devoted bodyguard.”
“Whatever.” Wishing to end the conversation, Edward turned to open the door, calling out, “Hey, Al’s here.”
Roy looked up. “Good. Edward, could I have a word?”
He shrugged and entered the room, kicking the door close behind him. There was a chair in front of Roy’s desk but he didn’t sit on it, preferring to perch on a corner of the desk itself. That way Roy had to look up at him. “Yeah?”
“Do you know any alchemists who might agree to teach alchemy to mongrels and normals? I need to do something about those who claim I’m a freak of nature but we can’t seem to find anyone willing to do the teaching.”
He thought about it. Armstrong would have been a possibility if he weren’t much too busy with running the country, Alphonse was similarly busy…
“You could try Russell Trigham, I guess,” he offered at length. “He’s out of work now that you ended all chimera experiments. Pretty much all the others are old stuck-up bastards.”
“I see.” Roy wrote down Russell’s name with a question mark. “Could you talk to him? If possible I’d like you to work with him on this.”
“Hello? I already have a job. I can’t split myself in two!”
“There are enough guards around. In any case, I’m sure Alphonse can handle any problem that arises.”
“Why isn’t Alphonse doing it?” he protested. “He’d be a better teacher than me.”
“Because he says you’re the one going crazy doing this job. You need something more stimulating.”
“I’m not--”
“Fuhrer’s order,” Roy told him, smirking.
He glared. “You’re going to owe me one.”
The phone rang: Roy snatched it. “Yes? …Hughes, how did you get access to this line? I don’t care what color you paint the baby room! I’m working!” He slammed the receiver down and rubbed his forehead. “I can’t see this getting any better.”
“Yeah,” he agreed. “I think Gracia’s just created a monster.”
“What was I saying? Yes, the class…” Roy produced a three-page document. “Here’s the list of people interested to learn so far. I’d like you to screen them and select the ones you want to teach. Look for people interested in helping others and avoid those looking for a power trip. The penalties for using alchemy criminally will be severe. Do mention that to Lyra in particular…”
“Yeah, yeah.” He grabbed the pages. “When do I start?”
“Tomorrow. You have today to convince Tringham to help you.”
“Demanding bastard.” He was certain he could convince Russell to help: everybody needed a job. And if this turned out alright, it could be the beginning of an interesting career for an attention-seeker like that annoying Russell.
“I’m not done,” Roy went on. “I have an angry letter here from one miss Winry who demands to have a few hours of your time today for urgent automail maintenance. You will therefore visit her before everything else.” Roy dug into his desk, producing a box of chocolate and handing it over. “Here. It might save you a few bumps.”
Everything seemed to have been decided already. “Alright, alright. I’ll be gone most of the day then. Don’t forget to eat or I’ll come back here and spoon feed you.”
The phone rang as he left the room. Armstrong or Hughes? The door closed before he could know.
The office was placed at the end of a dead end: there were other guards up ahead whose job was to search people for weapons but Alphonse and he were the last line of defense for Roy. Well, from now on Alphonse would be alone doing it.
“Al, I have to see Winry for my automail. Then Roy has this stupid idea that I should teach alchemy to mongrels with Russell’s help,” he complained.
Alphonse nodded. “I heard. I think it’s a good idea. You’re less likely to kill your students than you are to kill the women who want to sleep with Roy.”
He ignored that. “You’re going to be okay alone with him?”
“There’s only about four other guards keeping an eye out for trouble,” Alphonse replied. “I think we’ll be just fine.”
“But--”
“I’m not going to let anyone kill him, I promise. Stop worrying.” Alphonse had the nerve to look amused, as if he didn’t have perfectly legitimate reasons to worry.
“Fine,” he huffed. “I’ll be back when I can.”
He jogged to Winry’s quarters for a very simple reason: if he looked busy enough, people wouldn’t try to stop him to weasel into his favor or to weasel favors out of him. The whole political thing sucked.
Roy, he found out, did know a thing or two about women. Winry’s thunderous expression softened as he offered her the box of chocolate and claimed to be sorry about being unable to free himself earlier.
“I suppose you’re busy, with everything going on,” she allowed. “Riza’s in the same situation. She’s barely been home in the last few months. I miss her but what can you do. She’s needed.” She beckoned to him. “Come on up. I’ll try to be quick.”
Quick she was, but gentle she was not. The arm was first, then the leg. Edward kept his complaints to a minimum, hoping to get away without a single wrench smack: he needed a clear head.
“There,” she finally said, petting his leg’s naked automail port. “It should be alright.” Winry however did not move to give him his leg back. Instead, she sat away from him with the automail limb. “Alphonse asked me to do him a favor,” she started. “He says you refuse to see your father.”
“Don’t start.”
“I’ll start and I’ll stop when I want to,” Winry said bluntly. “Your father hasn’t done anything wrong. He wasn’t there, so stop blaming him.”
He could only hold his tongue for so long. “But that’s the thing. He left. If he hadn’t, none of it would have happened.”
“Your father isn’t responsible for Dante’s insanity.”
“He created Envy, didn’t he?”
“You created Sloth, didn’t you?”
The following silence was made of ice. He ground his teeth together and kept his eyes averted. He would have walked out but he was missing a leg and hopping out wasn’t very dignified.
He didn’t see the slap coming, but he did see the blue eyes glittering with annoyance two inches from his own. “You listen to me, Edward Elric. Your mother had to know your father was sick. She certainly wanted him to go and try to find a cure so her kids wouldn’t lose their father, okay? She didn’t know Dante was insane, and neither did your father, or he wouldn’t have left her in charge! Now Dante is dead, and good for her. Your father is this close to dying too, and you’re too much of a self-absorbed prick to go see him? Well done. I’m sure your mother would be proud of you.”
He rubbed his head and was silent for a long time. What could he say? She had some points, but he had so much anger that he couldn’t begin to vocalize it.
Winry slammed his automail leg home. Once the stars of pain faded, she grabbed and squeezed his hand. “I’ll go with you. Come on.”
“But--”
“You shut your mouth or I’m going to climb on the roof and let everybody know you’ve been sleeping with Roy Mustang for months,” she said cheerfully.
He shut his mouth. How did she even know that? He’d been careful, hadn’t he? Even the first time, he hadn’t done anything until after Roy had been home and put to bed to recover from shock. There hadn’t been anybody to see! Well, aside for Alphonse, who’d managed to walk in just as it was getting impossible to deny he was doing what he was doing... Had Alphonse told Winry about it?
Winry grinned, reading his mind. “Nobody told me. Now stop gaping and come on. It’s time to visit your dad.” She pulled him down the stairs.
Edward dragged his feet all the way, hoping against hope somebody would run up to him and inform him that Roy needed him immediately for some super important thing that couldn’t wait a second longer. It didn’t happen. He finally found himself shoved in a sparse and depressing white room with a man he hadn’t seen in years.
He stopped and blinked: it was difficult to reconcile his mental image of a towering, smug bastard with the sickly, tired-looking man resting in the hospital bed. The telltale purple bruises were creeping up his neck already.
He however couldn’t have denied the resemblance between them: they had the same eyes and both wore a ponytail, nearly the same length and color. He knew now what he would end up looking like if he stopped shaving.
Hohenheim smiled at him, a tired, sad smile. “Hello, Edward. I’m glad you came.”
His throat was tight and he couldn’t figure out why his eyes stung.
“Hello, Father.”
I didn't want to write awkward first-time sex, I wanted sexy threesome sex, so hello time-jump.
Counter for posterity.
This is it I guess. Almost 4 years, almost 200,000 words. It was a good learning experience. I'm going to miss kicking this thing around and bitching at it. ;_; Thanks for putting up with me.
Rating: NC-17 here!
Genre: AU
Pairing: Multiple
Length: 7,009 words
Roy had never thought he would ever regret being a literate mongrel alchemist. But as he watched the piles of papers on his desk rise to dizzying heights, he found himself regretting aplenty. Had there been a sufficiently large window in his richly decorated office, he might have defenestrated himself.
The door across the room opened, Edward stepping in with yet another folder in hand. "Hey, Riza just brought this from Armstrong's office. First priority."
"What is it now?" he despaired. "He wants to change the army's uniform to a happy pink color to boost moral?"
"It's about Hughes' wedding," Edward corrected, shamelessly flipping through the document. "Just a few extra security measures he wants to implement. Just sign it. It looks good to me."
Roy breathed. "Ah, yes. I'm glad he took care of that. We can't afford any incident.” How long had it been since the last mixed wedding in Central? A few hundred years? Some imbeciles were bound to try to cause trouble.
“Let them try.” Edward flexed his automail meaningfully.
Taking hold of the folder, Roy only skimmed the sheets inside before adding his signature under Armstrong’s. He trusted Armstrong on such matters. On some others, however... There were days he wished that either he ruled alone, or that Armstrong ruled alone. It was a headache to handle the big man when he got a case of bleeding heart and had to be talked out of trying to save the world right this minute. Riza helped him in such cases, but somehow he was expected to do the dirty work, because he was the “other fuhrer,” or whatever the two of them should be called when they ruled jointly. So far everybody seemed to find “Mr. Mustang” and “Mr. Armstrong” perfectly acceptable.
"What about Dante's funerals?” he inquired. “He hasn’t sent me anything on the subject since we spoke about it.”
"Oh yeah, that. Riza said he agrees it should wait after the wedding, but he says it’s going to have to be public. People need to know she really died."
"It won't help them believe she died of a disease we couldn't cure rather than from a secret execution,” he pointed out, shuddering as he remembered the woman’s fate.
Edward grimaced along: they'd both seen Dante just before her death, rotting inside and out. Medical alchemy could do nothing against that. They’d all implicitly agreed that she would not be offered another body, no matter how much she screamed for one. The cost of creating a stone to do it was much too high to even consider it. Armstrong, in this matter, had not been soft at all: after all, Dante had tried to claim Catherine’s body for her own.
The phone rang just as Edward left the room: Roy picked up, knowing only one person had access to this line. "Yes, Alex?"
"Have you reviewed the report for the wedding? I’d like it back immediately.”
"It's on its way.” Seeking an excuse to delay returning to work, he babbled on. “Speaking of weddings, have you heard anything about Catherine and Scar?" He still couldn’t believe it, but he knew a woman in love when he saw one. Scar...well. Who knew?
"Catherine says she must be gentle with him on this matter," Armstrong said, and did not seem to find anything odd with his own words. "They've been talking about heading to Ishbal with the freed slaves, to help them rebuild. Our parents object so far, but I believe she will have her way."
"It could be good for us," Roy mused. They needed all the positive publicity they could get.
"It could be good for the Ishbalians," Armstrong correctly gently. "Their world was torn apart. They may need help putting the pieces back together and I don't believe they would resent my sister's involvement."
The door creaked open: Edward’s head poked in, graced him with a warning frown and disappeared again.
He sighed, understanding the message. "I see. Well, if you'll excuse me, the paperwork is breeding. I still foolishly hope to be in bed before sundown."
"Good luck," Armstrong said with sympathy. "Be careful. There may be more attempts on your life."
"I have the two best bodyguards. Watch your own back."
Alex had a point. There was a very good reason why neither of their current offices had more than small windows placed high above the ground: two days after Alex and he had been announced as the new rulers, someone had thrown a bomb in their common office. Only the Elrics' quick reactions had saved them. Alex and he had separate offices now, to ensure they could not be not injured or killed together. It was a depressing thought.
His office itself was depressing. Oh, it was fancy enough, the blue walls covered with ridiculously expensive paintings and the furniture as comfortable and luxurious as it could be, but it was nothing but a trap designed to make him feel important as he slaved over stupid paperwork.
"I still don't see why Hughes couldn't do this job," he complained, staring at a fifty-page report concerning the various damages made during the uprising. "He's literate and charismatic too!"
"But you're the alchemist," Alphonse told him, walking in with a fresh cup of coffee. "It's your fault for impressing everybody with your skills.”
"Not everybody," Roy muttered.
"We're keeping an eye out for those," Alphonse assured him, leaving the coffee on his desk before moving back to his position in front of the door. Both of the Elrics spent their days there, talking, watching and taking turns bringing him food, drinks, or documents sent by Armstrong. It seemed a little dull, but Roy sometimes envied them: they didn’t have to deal with the paperwork!
The natural light died long before his workload. He heaved yet another sigh, cursed the existence of electricity and continued working.
Eventually, Roy noticed the paperwork piles were in fact lowering. He stared in amazement, then realized it was because there hadn’t been an arrival of paper in some time. Armstrong must have been pried away from his desk either by his sister or his fearsome half-secretary and half-bodyguard Riza Hawkeye.
He threw himself back to work, gleeful at the concept of lowering stacks.
The next time he looked up, there were two blondes staring down at him with crossed arms.
“Do you know what time it is?” Edward demanded.
"For someone who claims to hate all of this so much, you sure work hard,” Alphonse added. “You’re done for today. Put the pen down.”
He looked at his stacks, then back at them. “I don’t think I can.”
“Put the pen down,” Edward repeated, “or else.”
“Now.” Alphonse reached out and pulled the pen free from his grasp. “You’ve hardly left this room all week.”
“I went out a few times to see people.”
Edward snorted. “Because you had to. You didn’t even answer Greed’s invitation to visit his ‘classy’ brothel. I didn’t know your libido was already dead.”
“It’s not dead,” Roy protested, “I’m just busy. Beside, I’m not the kind of man who enjoys tacky places like brothels.”
“Yeah?” Edward put his hands on the desk and leaned toward him. “Well you better enjoy me. Move it.”
His mood improved by a notch as the words. The assassination attempt had yielded one very, very good consequence: Edward’s sudden decision to jump him (quite literally too). Maybe he just looked irresistible when he was under shock from nearly being killed, or maybe Edward thought sex was the only cure for shock. Either way, Roy had no complaints about it. He especially did not have any complaints about repetitions. It saved him the trouble of staging another murder attempt on his person.
Since he was visibly not being given a choice, he gave up and let Edward herd him toward the door. Alphonse followed them after scooping up the remaining documents in the urgent pile, certainly meaning to go through them for him. It wasn’t right to let someone else do his work, but there were times that the Elrics disregarded his opinion entirely, and this was one.
He protested on principle, but soon went quiet to avoid attracting attention. The sole advantage of working so late was that almost everybody else was already in bed and therefore couldn’t flock to him to drive him crazy with empty flattery and obvious attempts to influence him.
They quickly reached what everybody called “Mr. Mustang’s private quarters.’” There were guards at the door (and more in the back and on the roof), ensuring nobody could enter those rooms but the three of them. Well, the four of them, if the furball counted. (And Hughes. But Hughes never asked permission and nobody even knew HOW he got in. Somewhere along the way, the ninja joke had gotten out of hand.)
Havoc, one of the two guards presently on duty, pretended to choke on his cigarette. “Home before midnight, sir? I’m dreaming!”
“I was overpowered,” he answered dryly.
“We’re turning into babysitters,” Edward complained. He used alchemy to unlock the door and to lock it again behind them.
It was quiet inside: despite the lavish decoration, it was more like a bunker than a residence, with thick walls and narrow windows. The bedrooms had no windows at all: there would be no bombs thrown at them in the middle of the night.
The main bedroom was where they headed, shedding their clothes on the way. They were set back a few minutes by a meowing cat: Alphonse dumped the paperwork on the counter and hurried to feed her.
They resumed drifting toward the bed: free time had become a rare thing so they knew to hurry to take advantage of every minute.
Collapsing in a heap of naked limbs, they spend a few seconds trying to decide what they were doing without speaking a word. Edward grabbed a pillow and made himself comfortable against the wall, prompting Roy to push the blonde’s legs apart and dive in for a mouthful of soft flesh. This was work he could enjoy, work to be done with lips and tongue instead of his brain. Edward conveyed his approval by burying a hand in his hair.
Alphonse followed the theme, nudging him to spread his own legs: he did, allowing Alphonse to wiggle between them on his back and mirror what he was doing to Edward’s cock.
Roy was supporting himself with a hand on the bed and a hand on Edward’s automail: before long he found himself stroking the metal with his fingertips. Edward seemed to make a point not to make a sound when getting head, at least not when it was from him, but he’d had the occasion to find out there was an easy way to defeat Edward’s pride.
His fingers moved, searching, while Edward’s cock hardened and lengthened in his mouth. He was pleasantly aware of his own cock behaving similarly thanks to Alphonse’s teasing tongue.
Finally, Roy found and released the catch: the automail leg slid free.
Edward grunted. “Pervert.”
Alphonse laughed, or tried to, nearly gagging on the cock in his mouth. Roy might have gagged on a laugh too if he hadn’t already pulled back. They knew which of them was the most perverted.
Pushing the automail limb out of the way revealed the port and its most delicate parts-most sensitive parts too. Edward’s cock slid back in Roy’s throat as gently as his fingers slid inside the port, seeking the edge, just there-
A barely repressed twitch told him he had it right. His fingertips circled patiently, ever so light and careful. The twitches could not be hidden forever. Momentarily abandoning Edward’s straining cock, he nested his face in gold pubic hair and nibbled on what little flesh remained on Edward’s left thigh.
A human hand was pulling on his hair insistently, the automail one safely curled into the sheets. Edward’s strained breathing finally became audible, competing with Alphonse’s sucking sounds. Fierce competition indeed: Alphonse was resorting to unfair techniques, rolling his balls into his mouth and pulling very gently on them. It made him want to look down and watch, but he had a job to do.
“Come on,” Edward ground out.
He obliged, not from any desire to be kind, but because Alphonse was doing a marvelous job and it wouldn’t do to lost his erection so soon. He wasn’t old, but he was a grown man, and it was complicated to satisfy two young lovers.
His tongue spread saliva up and down Edward’s cock in long, slow licks before he pushed the head between his lips and beyond. An unexpected jerk of Edward’s hips pushed the cock deeper: his throat constricted, protesting. He would have pulled back a touch, couldn’t thanks to Edward’s insistent push on the back of his head. He focused on breathing through his nose and sucked, fingers dancing. If he did this right…
Ah, there it was, full out panting, borderline moaning, not to mention twitching hips and a painful grip on his hair. It was a race now, to make Edward come before Alphonse could make him come.
He won, earning a mouthful of semen as his prize. He moved aside then, rescuing his own cock from Alphonse’s mouth. Alphonse did not protest, rubbing neck muscles that no doubt ached from the straining position.
Edward, limp against the wall, was visibly trying to restore oxygen circulation to his brain. “Put it back,” he grumbled. “Hurry up.”
Roy did, quickly sliding the leg back where it belonged, but not without a touch of regret. It would be nice, sometime, if Edward would allow him to take off both his automail limbs to sleep, agree to be vulnerable for a night, but trust didn’t go that far yet.
The automail connected: Edward jerked back and slammed his head against the wall. A jumble of curse words tried to come out of his mouth all at once.
“Niisan, careful!”
“Edward?”
“I’m fine. Ugg. Carry on.” Rubbing his head, Edward rolled to the bed’s edge and settled on a pillow, looking grumpy and not longer interested in sex.
Alphonse, stroking his own cock with his legs spread invitingly, looked exactly the opposite.
Snagging the oil bottle on the nightstand, Roy motioned for Alphonse to roll over. His lubed fingers opened the way, his cock shortly replacing them. He hardly had to push, Alphonse eagerly pushing back on his cock.
Once deep inside, he slowed down, his hands parting Alphonse’s buttocks to better watch himself sink in and out. He might have been going a little too slow: Alphonse took over, firmly moving his hips back and forth until Roy took the hint and matched the speed. Flesh slapped flesh nosily.
Lowering himself over Alphonse’s back, he thrust harder until he came, ears full of the best sound in the world, a partner panting in pleasure from his attention. Nobody could say Roy Mustang wasn’t good in bed.
Aware of Alphonse’s preferences, he wrapped an arm around the blonde’s chest and sat back, pulling him along. Well seated on Roy’s still-hard cock, Alphonse jerked himself off with soft sounds, head thrown back to rest against Roy’s shoulder.
A quick cleanup later, they joined Edward under the covers. Sleep came fast.
Alphonse allowed himself a few moments to relax under the warm covers before regretfully forcing himself out of bed and away from loving cuddles. He wiggled into pants and retrieved the paperwork from the kitchen, bringing it back to the desk in the bedroom. He only lit one of the two lamps on the desk, mindful of the sleepers. Charcoal appeared to take her rightful place in his lap while he worked.
As he’d expected, most documents were perfectly in order and only required Roy’s signature. They concerned everything from orders to repair damages done during the uprising to new regulations meant to introduce equality for all. A few were purely informative documents of some importance: he read those carefully and set them aside for Roy.
A few more were completely worthless, ridiculous demands made by people who somehow had enough influence to end up in the urgent pile. One of them was nothing less than a petition to stop Hughes and Gracia’s wedding. Alphonse was tempted to tear it to pieces, but instead carefully reviewed the signatures: it was good to know who were the morons who thought that it was “unwholesome” and “degrading” to allow a blondie to marry a mongrel. Armstrong must have had the same thought: he’d circled the most influential names on the list for Roy’s benefit.
Peace and quiet did not last long enough for Alphonse to finish. Edward, having visibly recovered from his self-inflicted headache, had certain goals in mind: after nudging Roy’s arms apart, he transmuted part of the bed over the forearms.
“Niisan,” he said disapprovingly.
“What, you got sex and I didn’t.”
“You came too!”
“You tell me I need to sleep and then proceed to prevent me from doing so,” Roy mumbled into the pillow.
Edward straddled Roy’s back. His extremely long blonde hair, now free from its usual ponytail, covered his back like a cape. “You got a problem with that?”
“I’m already awake, aren’t I?”
Edward flashed him a triumphant smile. He rolled his eyes and tried to return to work. Tried being the key word. He found he couldn’t keep his eyes focused on the documents: they kept wandering off to see what it was Edward was doing, glimpsing light bites, fleeting touches and secret whispers.
It took him ten minutes to read a single page. He could have moved to the kitchen, but… Giving up, he prompted his chin into his palm and watched.
Edward leaned to speak in Roy’s ear, no doubt saying the kind of thing that Alphonse personally thought degrading, but those two seemed to have made a game of weird power trips, as evidenced by Roy’s smile even as he replied barely audible words.
“Oh, is that so?”
Edward’s human arm was stretched downward, his fingers visibly deep into Roy’s ass. The oil bottle could be spotted on the bed near them, on stand by for further use.
“Come on, say it,” Edward insisted, grabbing Roy’s hair with his automail and roughly pulling the older man’s head back.
“I’m all yours,” Roy said, eyes closed.
Edward pouted: it didn’t seem to be exactly what he wanted to hear. Still, he accepted it.
“Obviously, you are,” he replied, removing his fingers from Roy’s ass and slapping said ass with enough vigor to leave a red mark.
The oil bottle was recovered and put to good use. Edward pulled up Roy’s ass to a height he found acceptable and introduced his cock to Roy’s ass with a continuous push.
“You like that, bitch?”
“Mm, yes.”
Slow was not generally Edward’s preferred way to go about sex, but slow was how he took it and the reason for it was painfully obvious. Considering Edward’s typical impatience, he was the one suffering most from this tactic, not Roy.
Alphonse’s lips twitched but he forced himself not to laugh, a hand over his mouth. The whole thing was hilariously bad, but he couldn’t tell his poor brother. Edward certainly thought he was amazingly dominant and everything.
It was a wonder Roy was able to keep himself from laughing. Then again, Roy was probably aware that laughing would mean the end of sex until Edward stopped sulking, and that could last forever and a half. Why exactly Edward had suddenly decided he was going to fuck Roy as often as he could, well that was another matter entirely. Alphonse figured it was one of two thing: Roy’s momentarily vulnerability had been too much of a turn-on, or Edward had finally noticed bad stuff could happen to people not-him and if he didn’t suck up his pride fast enough, he might never get what he wanted. Maybe it was both. He couldn’t tell for sure, because his oh-so-mature brother blushed and glared if he tried to breech the subject, preferring to act like fucking Roy was the most natural thing in the world and he’d been doing it forever anyway.
As for Alphonse’s own role in the whole thing, well. When your sibling walks in on you making your big move, the socially acceptable response is to say “go away.” Unfortunately they’d never been that good at socially acceptable and Edward seemed to think he had to share. Their mother had indeed taught them to share everything, but he was pretty sure she hadn’t meant they should share a lover the way they would a cookie. He saved himself a headache by not asking questions and telling himself that whatever made everybody happy was fine with him. Socially non-acceptability aside, it was working out just fine so far.
When Alphonse’s mind stopped wandering and returned to the ongoing show, it found nothing had changed. Edward was still valiantly keeping himself going slow and steady, the frustration on his face evident, and Roy was still valiantly not laughing at the silliness of it all.
Roy’s next twitch served as an occasion for Edward to speak, hopeful, “Getting sore, huh?”
“A little,” Roy conceded.
“Maybe I should do something about this?” Edward mused, stopping his thrusts to grab Roy’s neglected cock with both hands. Perhaps a little too hard too: Roy squirmed.
“I would appreciate.”
“Mm. Try harder.”
“Please do.”
“Do what?”
One of them was playing with the other, but Alphonse wasn’t sure which. The game went on for a little while before Roy consented to deliver the words Edward wanted to hear.
“Please let me come.”
Looking more than happy to deliver, Edward used both his hands to achieve it, though he was always careful with the automail. There had been accidents in the far past, and they’d learned.
Edward himself was not done. This time the thrusts were far more frantic and his hands gripped Roy’s hips hard, jerking them back and forth. He pulled back as he came, gracing Roy’s back with a few drops of semen.
After enjoying the view a few moments, Edward bent down to remove the semen with his own tongue. Once done, he freed Roy from his bonds.
Roy rolled over on his back, eyelids already dropping again, and reached out to pull Edward to his chest, where Edward settled contently. Sleep seemed about to snatch them both: Roy’s last gesture was to plant a kiss on Edward’s forehead, which earned no complaint.
Alphonse shook his head: only his brother felt he needed to assert his dominance (no matter how badly he did so) before he could allow himself to nest in an older man’s arms.
His eyes fell on the work he had left: he resumed working, trusting the erection in his pants would die off on its own. One document, a single sheet, made his eyebrows go up: a woman claimed that Roy had gotten her pregnant several years ago and demanded that he took his responsibilities for her son Selim’s well-being. While Alphonse suspected Roy had distributed his seed widely, he thought this woman was most likely lying. He’d let Roy decide what to do about it.
It was almost a surprise when he ran out of work. It hadn’t taken that long. He stretched his arms above his head, content to have made a dent in Roy’s workload.
“Done? Come to bed already,” Edward’s hushed voice called to him.
Roy was asleep, lying on his back with his head turned in Alphonse’s direction and his arm still curled about Edward’s small body.
“I’m not sleepy,” he whispered back, leaving his seat. It was late now, but he knew someone who would still be up at this hour. “I think I’m going to visit him.”
“Fine,” Edward said sulkily. “Be careful.”
“You really should-”
“Lay off.”
Alphonse collected a few clothing items and made it to the door, looking over his shoulder to say, “You know he doesn’t have long to live.” He didn’t wait for a reply.
Outside, he saw Havoc had been replaced: he smiled and saluted the new guards.
He encountered no one in the corridors beside a few soldiers: the situation had mostly stabilized, but they could not be careless, not with the critical wedding coming up. There were still a few “fresh paint” signs where repairs had recently been done.
Yet more guards stood at the entrance of the quarantine area: they knew him and let him through wordlessly. The quarantine area was where Dante had been held and treated until her death, and it was where a new patient was now waiting for his own end.
Hohenheim’s sudden reappearance had shocked everybody: they’d dismissed him as dead, thinking Envy must have impersonated him for years. And yet, here he was, still breathing and completely unaware of everything that had occurred since before Trisha’s death.
Hohenheim was not alone: Clara sat with him, making small talk. She rose as he entered. “Ah, Alphonse. Paying a late visit again?”
“We just finally got done with work for today,” he sighed.
“You know what I said about overworking yourself.”
“I know, I know. We try. There’s just so much to do.” He thought Clara’s workload must have been just as heavy for her to be awake at this hour. There were indeed dark circles under her eyes.
“Well, I’ll leave you two alone then,” the woman said, tactfully removing herself from the room.
Alphonse took the vacant chair. “Hello, Father.”
“So Edward still won’t talk to me?”
“I’m sure he’ll get around soon.”
He hoped there was time: it was hard not to look at the purple marks visible on his father’s neck. They still did not know what was this horrible illness that had killed Dante and was killing Hohenheim. All Hohenheim had been willing to say was that it was not contagious (though telling people it was kept the curious at bay) and that the illness was the reason he’d left years ago, hoping to find a cure. There wasn’t one, he’d told them, seemingly at peace with the fact.
They spoke at length: philosophy, science, alchemy and his childhood were some subjects they touched. There were many things Alphonse would have expected himself to say in this situation, but now that it was real and his father was in front of him, he found he did not want to linger on painful events. It wouldn’t change anything, and Edward had to realize that soon.
Of Trisha’s fate, they did not speak. Hohenheim’s only reaction upon learning what had befallen his wife had been to ask to see the grave, a wish they had granted him at night to avoid attracting onlookers. He’d remained there for hours but hadn’t asked to return since.
When Alphonse left, he was dismayed to find out the sun was about to rise. Clara was also still awake, though she yawned before telling him softly, “I don’t expect him to live beyond next week, Alphonse. A normal person wouldn’t even get that far, but whatever this disease is, it isn’t normal.”
“Do what you can, please. I’ll be back tomorrow.” With Edward, he hoped.
He was welcomed home by the comforting smell of brewing coffee. Roy was awake-in a manner of speaking-and watching the coffee machine with rapt attention.
“Roy. You shouldn’t be up so early. You need sleep.”
“I’m a grown man.” Roy gingerly poured himself a cup of steaming coffee. “I don’t need that much sleep. You’re the one who shouldn’t be up. Go to bed. You can join us later at work.”
“Going, going…“
Coming closer, Roy used his free hand to ruffle his hair. “Sleep,” he repeated gently, giving him a small push toward the bedroom.
Edward was spread all over the large bed, snoring happily. Alphonse nudged a limb aside and claimed one of the numerous pillows for himself, falling asleep so fast it was more like passing out.
Edward was awakened by a loud obnoxious voice.
“Edward!” the voice said in what seemed to be pure delight, “My Gracia is pregnant! We’re having a baby!”
“Hughes,” Roy’s voice chided. “Alphonse needs to sleep, keep your voice down.”
“Awake now,” Alphonse said sleepily. “Congratulation…”
“Thank you! Isn’t it just amazing? A baby! It’s like magic!”
“One day I’ll explain biology to you, Hughes.”
“Who let this guy in?” Edward grumbled, burying his head under his pillow.
“No, you get up,” Roy said, grabbing his ankle and pulling. “I need to go to work and Alphonse is sleeping in. Up.”
“Gracia says she’s almost three months along,” Hughes was babbling on. “She wasn’t sure at first because she didn’t feel sick but the doctor confirmed it! She’s pregnant! We need to think about names. What if it’s a boy? What if it’s a girl? Oh, a baby girl! I could buy her dresses--”
“That’s great, Hughes,” Roy steered his crazy friend toward the door. “Now could you get out so Edward can get dressed? I have to go to work soon. Shouldn’t you be watching over Gracia? She could be feeling badly.”
“Oh, I’m going right back to her! I told her she should stay in bed. I’ll cook the healthiest food for the baby--”
Finally, the endless stream of words was cut off.
Edward pulled himself out of bed and hurled himself into the bathroom for a five-minute shower. Alchemy dried him quicker than a towel. He shaved, put his hair up in a ponytail and dressed quickly, but without enthusiasm. He wished his brother and he didn’t have to do this, but there was nobody else he trusted with this job. A job that Roy described as “protecting the frail stability of the new government,” which basically meant he had to keep crazies from blowing up Roy so the man could keep the privilege of bashing his head against the wall trying to fix what 400 years of baseless discrimination had done to the city and the country.
He was just glad he wasn’t the one dealing with the paperwork.
A stack of golden-brown pancakes was waiting for him on the table, like a gift from the gods. Their end was quick and painless. The day however, was unlikely to be either quick or painless. From the moment he opened the door, he was Mr. Mustang’s bodyguard and on high alert. It would take much time before they would be allowed to relax and he could go back to what he liked best, alchemy.
They moved quickly, safely arriving at Roy’s office to begin a wonderful new day of paperwork (for Roy) and refusing entry to all sorts of people who thought they could just walk in and tell the mongrel what they wanted (for him).
And of course there was a little problem that, so far, he’d been able to keep from Roy. Alphonse, when he appeared early afternoon, was not fooled by his attempt at a blank expression.
“Hey. You don’t look in a good mood. Something to do with these ashes on the floor?”
He let out an aggravated sigh. “I swear, if they don’t stop offering themselves like whores, I’ll strangle them. Can you imagine how inflated his head would get if he saw all those marriage proposals from complete strangers? It’s bad enough with the women who trail him whenever he’s not at home or at work…”
“You could marry him,” Alphonse said. “That’d end it.”
He gagged at the idea. “I’m not marrying him! Men don’t marry!” Why would men even need to? Marriage was mostly a way to force a man to admit he was the father of a woman’s children. Since he didn’t like women, he would never have that problem. He could just see Winry trying to stuff him into a dress, insisting one of them had to wear it… No, no marriage.
Alphonse patted him on the shoulder. “Niisan. Roy and Armstrong are planning to ban slavery, to open schools for the poor, to allow mixed marriage and to stop alchemical research and experiments on people. I think homosexual marriage would go through a lot easier than half of those. People would complain a lot more about your hair color than about your sex.”
He shrugged. “They have enough problems with everything you just listed without adding to it.”
“Don’t complain then. These marriage proposals will keep rolling in until he’s settled down, and then they’ll still be trying to sleep with him. Beside, sooner or later you’ll be found out. The whole ‘private bodyguard’ thing only goes so far…”
“What do you know?” His brother was probably right, but he didn’t like it. “Beside, what’s with the ‘you’? It’s not just me.”
Alphonse grimaced. “You can be the official partner thing and deal with the jealous women. I’ll stick with being the devoted bodyguard.”
“Whatever.” Wishing to end the conversation, Edward turned to open the door, calling out, “Hey, Al’s here.”
Roy looked up. “Good. Edward, could I have a word?”
He shrugged and entered the room, kicking the door close behind him. There was a chair in front of Roy’s desk but he didn’t sit on it, preferring to perch on a corner of the desk itself. That way Roy had to look up at him. “Yeah?”
“Do you know any alchemists who might agree to teach alchemy to mongrels and normals? I need to do something about those who claim I’m a freak of nature but we can’t seem to find anyone willing to do the teaching.”
He thought about it. Armstrong would have been a possibility if he weren’t much too busy with running the country, Alphonse was similarly busy…
“You could try Russell Trigham, I guess,” he offered at length. “He’s out of work now that you ended all chimera experiments. Pretty much all the others are old stuck-up bastards.”
“I see.” Roy wrote down Russell’s name with a question mark. “Could you talk to him? If possible I’d like you to work with him on this.”
“Hello? I already have a job. I can’t split myself in two!”
“There are enough guards around. In any case, I’m sure Alphonse can handle any problem that arises.”
“Why isn’t Alphonse doing it?” he protested. “He’d be a better teacher than me.”
“Because he says you’re the one going crazy doing this job. You need something more stimulating.”
“I’m not--”
“Fuhrer’s order,” Roy told him, smirking.
He glared. “You’re going to owe me one.”
The phone rang: Roy snatched it. “Yes? …Hughes, how did you get access to this line? I don’t care what color you paint the baby room! I’m working!” He slammed the receiver down and rubbed his forehead. “I can’t see this getting any better.”
“Yeah,” he agreed. “I think Gracia’s just created a monster.”
“What was I saying? Yes, the class…” Roy produced a three-page document. “Here’s the list of people interested to learn so far. I’d like you to screen them and select the ones you want to teach. Look for people interested in helping others and avoid those looking for a power trip. The penalties for using alchemy criminally will be severe. Do mention that to Lyra in particular…”
“Yeah, yeah.” He grabbed the pages. “When do I start?”
“Tomorrow. You have today to convince Tringham to help you.”
“Demanding bastard.” He was certain he could convince Russell to help: everybody needed a job. And if this turned out alright, it could be the beginning of an interesting career for an attention-seeker like that annoying Russell.
“I’m not done,” Roy went on. “I have an angry letter here from one miss Winry who demands to have a few hours of your time today for urgent automail maintenance. You will therefore visit her before everything else.” Roy dug into his desk, producing a box of chocolate and handing it over. “Here. It might save you a few bumps.”
Everything seemed to have been decided already. “Alright, alright. I’ll be gone most of the day then. Don’t forget to eat or I’ll come back here and spoon feed you.”
The phone rang as he left the room. Armstrong or Hughes? The door closed before he could know.
The office was placed at the end of a dead end: there were other guards up ahead whose job was to search people for weapons but Alphonse and he were the last line of defense for Roy. Well, from now on Alphonse would be alone doing it.
“Al, I have to see Winry for my automail. Then Roy has this stupid idea that I should teach alchemy to mongrels with Russell’s help,” he complained.
Alphonse nodded. “I heard. I think it’s a good idea. You’re less likely to kill your students than you are to kill the women who want to sleep with Roy.”
He ignored that. “You’re going to be okay alone with him?”
“There’s only about four other guards keeping an eye out for trouble,” Alphonse replied. “I think we’ll be just fine.”
“But--”
“I’m not going to let anyone kill him, I promise. Stop worrying.” Alphonse had the nerve to look amused, as if he didn’t have perfectly legitimate reasons to worry.
“Fine,” he huffed. “I’ll be back when I can.”
He jogged to Winry’s quarters for a very simple reason: if he looked busy enough, people wouldn’t try to stop him to weasel into his favor or to weasel favors out of him. The whole political thing sucked.
Roy, he found out, did know a thing or two about women. Winry’s thunderous expression softened as he offered her the box of chocolate and claimed to be sorry about being unable to free himself earlier.
“I suppose you’re busy, with everything going on,” she allowed. “Riza’s in the same situation. She’s barely been home in the last few months. I miss her but what can you do. She’s needed.” She beckoned to him. “Come on up. I’ll try to be quick.”
Quick she was, but gentle she was not. The arm was first, then the leg. Edward kept his complaints to a minimum, hoping to get away without a single wrench smack: he needed a clear head.
“There,” she finally said, petting his leg’s naked automail port. “It should be alright.” Winry however did not move to give him his leg back. Instead, she sat away from him with the automail limb. “Alphonse asked me to do him a favor,” she started. “He says you refuse to see your father.”
“Don’t start.”
“I’ll start and I’ll stop when I want to,” Winry said bluntly. “Your father hasn’t done anything wrong. He wasn’t there, so stop blaming him.”
He could only hold his tongue for so long. “But that’s the thing. He left. If he hadn’t, none of it would have happened.”
“Your father isn’t responsible for Dante’s insanity.”
“He created Envy, didn’t he?”
“You created Sloth, didn’t you?”
The following silence was made of ice. He ground his teeth together and kept his eyes averted. He would have walked out but he was missing a leg and hopping out wasn’t very dignified.
He didn’t see the slap coming, but he did see the blue eyes glittering with annoyance two inches from his own. “You listen to me, Edward Elric. Your mother had to know your father was sick. She certainly wanted him to go and try to find a cure so her kids wouldn’t lose their father, okay? She didn’t know Dante was insane, and neither did your father, or he wouldn’t have left her in charge! Now Dante is dead, and good for her. Your father is this close to dying too, and you’re too much of a self-absorbed prick to go see him? Well done. I’m sure your mother would be proud of you.”
He rubbed his head and was silent for a long time. What could he say? She had some points, but he had so much anger that he couldn’t begin to vocalize it.
Winry slammed his automail leg home. Once the stars of pain faded, she grabbed and squeezed his hand. “I’ll go with you. Come on.”
“But--”
“You shut your mouth or I’m going to climb on the roof and let everybody know you’ve been sleeping with Roy Mustang for months,” she said cheerfully.
He shut his mouth. How did she even know that? He’d been careful, hadn’t he? Even the first time, he hadn’t done anything until after Roy had been home and put to bed to recover from shock. There hadn’t been anybody to see! Well, aside for Alphonse, who’d managed to walk in just as it was getting impossible to deny he was doing what he was doing... Had Alphonse told Winry about it?
Winry grinned, reading his mind. “Nobody told me. Now stop gaping and come on. It’s time to visit your dad.” She pulled him down the stairs.
Edward dragged his feet all the way, hoping against hope somebody would run up to him and inform him that Roy needed him immediately for some super important thing that couldn’t wait a second longer. It didn’t happen. He finally found himself shoved in a sparse and depressing white room with a man he hadn’t seen in years.
He stopped and blinked: it was difficult to reconcile his mental image of a towering, smug bastard with the sickly, tired-looking man resting in the hospital bed. The telltale purple bruises were creeping up his neck already.
He however couldn’t have denied the resemblance between them: they had the same eyes and both wore a ponytail, nearly the same length and color. He knew now what he would end up looking like if he stopped shaving.
Hohenheim smiled at him, a tired, sad smile. “Hello, Edward. I’m glad you came.”
His throat was tight and he couldn’t figure out why his eyes stung.
“Hello, Father.”
I didn't want to write awkward first-time sex, I wanted sexy threesome sex, so hello time-jump.
Counter for posterity.
This is it I guess. Almost 4 years, almost 200,000 words. It was a good learning experience. I'm going to miss kicking this thing around and bitching at it. ;_; Thanks for putting up with me.